Sweden held national elections today, and like the United States in 2020, counting the votes has been halted for the night, with about 250,00o votes still outstanding—a significant number in Sweden though probably not enough to alter the outcome, which right now appears to favor four center-right parties over the center-left parties by a razor-close 176-173 margin in Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag.
The trouble with Sweden is that it is one of those parliamentary systems that has eight parties contesting for seats on a basis of proportional (rather than first-past-the-post) representation, so no party has achieved an outright majority for decades, requiring endless coalition governments. Perhaps coalition government produce the same kind of Aristotelian moderation that our two-party system is said to produce with its harmonizing aspects, but I am not so sure.
The surge in support for right-leaning parties, especially the leader among the four, the “Sweden Democrats” (not to be confused with the left-leaning and current ruling “Social Democrats”) reflects the rise in discontent with the effects of mass immigration of non-European populations. The relatively new party has gone from about 5 percent support a decade ago to about 22 percent today.
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